


want all your poisoned sunsets (want all that you got, i say it a lot)

by Yellow_Bird_On_Richland



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Rewrite, Episode: s01e16 Communication Studies, Episode: s01e25 Pascal's Triangle Revisited, Episode: s05e12 Basic Story, Episode: s05e13 Basic Sandwich, F/M, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 04:53:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29076657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yellow_Bird_On_Richland/pseuds/Yellow_Bird_On_Richland
Summary: Britta once thought that late spring and early summer’s cruelest trick was offering the year’s longest day in June, only a couple of weeks after school ended. Knowing that daylight was starting to dwindle by the fourth of July always pushed her spirit closer to the dirt.She learns new forms of deception for every season once she meets Jeff.
Relationships: Britta Perry/Jeff Winger
Comments: 8
Kudos: 20





	want all your poisoned sunsets (want all that you got, i say it a lot)

**Author's Note:**

> Response to the Tumblr prompts of Taylor Swift lyrics, this one being Cruel Summer’s “I love you, ain’t that the worst thing that you ever heard.” Fic title adapted from “Want What You Got” by The Beaches.

The flowers are fake, and he likes Slater.

The flowers are fake, and he likes Slater.

Rote repetition and memorization will get her through this, Britta hopes, as she robotically changes out of her dance outfit. Abed mentioned that. How it's possible to find comfort in cold, hard facts precisely because they're unfeeling. They can't lie.

They can't lie like Jeff can.

" _It's not your fault,"_ she whispers to herself about a week before the Valentine's Day dance. _"After all, he's more than a garden variety sleazeball. He's articulate as fuck and whip-smart some days and impossibly stupid during others but it feels like he gives a shit about you even when you know he's trying to piss you off and—"_

" _Stop it. Don't go down that path again, Britta_. _Don't let yourself get pulled in by his charm."_

But she still reaches out for him like she's skitching a ride off the vice principal's car back in her extra-rebellious high school days, and she wishes she could despise Jeff—just for a second—just long enough to let go.

Her mind and her arms won't obey her.

Especially not after she gets the drunk voicemail.

It's a magnum opus of inebriation, honestly, and she'd be impressed by how Jeff manages to stay lucid through most of it, considering he and Abed sound absolutely _gone_ , if it wasn't for how he slurs her name every so often, like, "Brittsss...you're so fuckin _annoying_ sometimes with your _morals,_ but—Abed, Abed, wait, lemme finish, buddy, 's a compliment—but, like, I want you to bother me with 'em."

The dance will be a shitshow if she goes, so she won't.

**

She goes. She's dressed to the nines, to the tens, even, trying to look hard to please and harder to impress in a mood, new shoes, and a bullet-proof dress.

She undoubtedly outshines Slater, and Jeff's stare starts at her hair and sweeps over her eyes to her lips to her breasts, and her smile's just the tiniest bit too satisfied as she says, "I came because you invited me. In your phone call last night?"

He shakes his head, eyes wide with worry. "Honestly, I don't remember that phone call or anything from last night. But Slater found out about it and she's pretty much broken up with me, and if she finds out about this, it's over. And I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

She lets him twist in the wind for a few seconds before she turns her smile into a smirk.

"And…" his eyes narrow in suspicion. "You're messing with me? Yeah, you're messing with me."

"Duh-doy. I knew you didn't remember anything from that phone call, you and Abed were obviously hammered."

"So you got dressed up just to see me sweat?"

Britta nods, answers cheerfully, "Believe me, you're worth it," even as her mind whispers, _"You sure about that?"_

She watches him try to catch Slater, watches him stammering as the math professor asks, "What's left to say?" and she's either crazy into him or she hates herself even more than she thought, because she volunteers, "Lemme help," and plays the start of his message.

" _Look, I am really into Michelle, and I don't wanna screw it up. She's a perfect girlfriend. And I want you to be as happy as me 'cause you're my favorite friend, so—"_ he laughs and hiccups on the call. _"Yeah, I said she's my girlfriend! Sorry, Abed just made a turtle face, and his turtle face is really funny."_

Slater's looking at her (and Jeff) in a new light and Jeff's tugging her in for a tight hug and he whispers, "Thank you, Britta."

"Thank _you_ for a very informative forty minute voicemail, Jeff."

She tries to laugh it off as they leave, tries to pretend everything's alright, that nothing's wrong with Jeff getting his attractive, smart, put-together girlfriend back.

She deletes the voicemail; better to get rid of it than to cling to something that means nothing at all.

Until paintball.

**

"Seriously? You slept with me just to win this game?"

"No, I slept with you and _now_ I'm going to win this game," Britta clarifies as she starts getting dressed while brandishing her pistol at Jeff. "They're two separate events, don't be gross."

He scoffs at her just the same. "Says the woman putting on Hello Kitty underwear one-handed."

She gestures at him a bit more strongly this time. "Says the woman with a gun pointed at your chest."

"Can I at least put my shirt on before you shoot me?"

She takes half a step back so he can get up off the table to grab it. "I'll offer you that courtesy, sure."

He tugs his muscle shirt over his head and she offers a conceited nod. "Well played, Jeff, but your chances at priority registration end here."

She squeezes the trigger and...nothing.

He's got the audacity to smirk at her, and then he gets off the table again, reaches down for his pants, and retrieves the clip from his back pocket (thanks to the patriarchy, he can fit a paint-bullet clip in his jeans pocket while hers can barely hold her phone).

He holds it up and wiggles it at her. "I think you'll need this if you wanna shoot anyone, Britts."

"When did you take that?" she demands.

"Around when you started seducing me."

God, his grin's still infuriating and he's a jerk and fuck it all if she doesn't just wanna kiss him some more.

"I wasn't seducing you!" she insists, hating how her voice scales up half an octave. "It just—" she pulls a face and makes their weird sexual tension noise again and he laughs and she's so, so screwed. "It just happened."

Jeff's grin grows a bit wider. "Be that as it may, turns out I was right to take precautions."

"Not enough precautions. _Buenos dias_ , children."

Britta and Jeff turn toward the low, menacing voice at the doorway. It's Chang leveling a tiger-striped paintball machine gun at them.

"Chang?! You're—you're not a student!" Jeff sputters.

He drawls, "I'm not?" as he pulls a sheet of paper out from the breast pocket of his sport coat. "Well, this little form says otherwise, since I'm enrolled in…" he squints, and Britta clutches at Jeff's hand to pull him ever so slightly toward the couch in the back. "Math for Bartenders, biatches! Now…" he tosses the paper aside with a flourish and cocks his rifle. "Prepare to meet your doom!"

Britta has just enough time to think, "What the fuck even _is_ this school," before she yells, "Take cover!"

She dives behind one couch, and Jeff leaps and rolls over the other while Chang maniacally sprays bullets everywhere.

"Glad you held onto that." She points at her gun clip, grabs at it, but Jeff holds it back, away from her.

"And why would I give it back to you?" he snorts.

She scoots over to him and fixes him with a serious look, one that says, _"As stupid as this sounds, it's about more than paintball."_

"Look, you had the drop on me. I lost, I'm out." She jerks her head in Chang's general direction. "Lemme do this for you."

Jeff gazes at her as if, for now, she's his everything and assents with a barely noticeable nod. "Ok."

She can't help it—she surges forward on all fours, shuts her eyes, and kisses him hard enough that he bumps his head on the back of the overturned couch and he grabs at the back of her neck to keep her there.

She can't even try to care that he's getting yet more paint from his hands from swapping out bullets into her hair and some part of her whispers, _"I win. For today, at least, I win."_

Because, no offense to Slater, but Britta's pretty sure the woman wouldn't fuck Jeff on the study room table in the middle of a paintball war, nor would she sacrifice herself to avoid getting gunned down by a psychotic Spanish teacher.

She grins at him as she steals both guns. "Be pretty crazy if I shot you right now, huh?"

He looks at her like she could do that or anything she pleases, for all he cares, and that might be more dangerous than what's going on in the rest of the room, so she sneaks a peek out to see what Chang's up to right as he discards his rifle in exchange for dual-action pistols.

" _No time like the present,"_ Britta decides as she breaks cover, squeezing off rounds as she sprints around the outside of the room, and Chang returns fire.

A couple of the paint-bullets collide and…

"Well, shit," she mutters, looking down at the pink spray that's now decorating her tank top and her clavicles, but at least Chang's out, too, judging by the pink and yellow splatters on his shirt.

Jeff hefts up the machine gun—perhaps a spoil of war, or maybe he's gonna shoot Chang, too; she wouldn't blame him for it—when the teacher starts laughing hysterically.

"What's so funny, Chang?"

"Maybe it's the fact there's no such thing as priority registration. Or...maybe it's this." He lifts an eyebrow as he opens one side of his sportcoat a bit and sings, "Ta-daaa."

It's a paint-bomb. Of course.

Jeff glances back to her, but she's already on the move, too, almost pushing him forward before she remembers she's got paint all over her.

As much as Britta hates to admit that Jeff's good-looking, she can comfortably say he's got killer action star moves, as he makes a spread-eagle dive out of the study room while she commits a much less graceful leap—she might've already lost, but she's not trying to drown under several gallons of green paint.

She crawls over to Jeff, says, "Congr—"

He pushes himself up off the floor and cuts her off with a kiss that reminds her he's rather earned the right to be cocky about his sexual prowess.

"What was that for?" she murmurs as they break apart.

Jeff shrugs. "Isn't the guy always supposed to kiss the girl after they survive a near-death explosion in an action movie? And besides that...I dunno. It's you. It's me. It's us. It felt right in the moment."

"Fair enough."

She's not sure where they go from here, or rather, where they'll go after they each head home and shower to scrub paint and sweat out of their pores, but it feels like the start of something.

**

She didn't think she'd end up here.

She's going stupid when she sees Slater flirt with Jeff, and she should know better than to act out, but patterns repeat, so it's not surprising when she sticks her foot in her mouth and swallows it whole.

She's swiped the mic away from the Dean before she realizes she's done it and she calls to him. "Jeff Winger, do not get back with Slater."

The mic shakes in her unsteady grip and she can barely breathe, and her face feels scrunched up, but that's how she knows this is real, right? That it's not some made for TV moment?

Or, well, it sort of is, as a trainwreck.

Even though she means what she's about to say, it's still a bitch to force the words out. "I love you."

She's not expecting an "I love you" back, in all honesty, but a kiss would be nice, or at least a hug. Some confirmation that she's not totally insane, that Jeff can feel this connection between them, too, and wants to strengthen it the way an actual couple might. They could at least get close to that, she thinks, if they tried.

But everyone else chimes in about being "Team Britta" or "Team Slater," and it's all bullshit—they're actual _people_ , not a love triangle in some tween YA novel—and suddenly Duncan's rapping about his "long schlong" and everything's wrong and Jeff?

Jeff's backpedaling away and hurrying out of the gym.

Britta wills herself to keep her face as blank as possible, to betray nothing, to keep her mask on as she exits, the way she had to when she came out to her parents at seventeen and they categorically refused to believe she was bi.

She finally cracks when she's at home, on her third shot of whiskey in about ten minutes, and even if she hadn't already burst out sobbing, there's no fucking way she'd answer the phone for Jeff.

She texts him, _Stop calling me. Don't message me. Talk to you in two weeks, maybe. Happy summer, asshole._

She cradles her head in her hands and contemplates what it might be like to not be a mistake, to not have life perpetually sliding through her fingers, to not feel like every version of herself is destined to fuck up.

**

So _completely_ isolating herself from the group for the entire summer might've been a step too far, but it's a new year, so she can turn over a new leaf, right?

As an almost-thirty-something at a four-year community college. Yeah, right.

She breezes in, bursting at the seams with false confidence, and announces, "Hello, hello, hello! As the new ring-leader in the Greendale circus, lemme speak for the elephant in the room: yes, I made a complete ass of myself and Jeff at the Transfer Dance at the end of last year, and yes, I wish I could take it back." She reconsiders that statement. "Or nearly all of it, Slater was still a turd. Besides that, though," she offers the humblest bow she can give to Jeff and everyone else, "my sincerest apologies."

Shirley and Annie, ever the sweethearts, accept immediately, Pierce makes some comment about being surprised she's not gay, Troy seems confused, and Abed pipes up, "I accept, too."

She gives a hopeful look toward Jeff, who's wearing what she calls his "lawyer face."

"Look, I don't mean to be a tool—"

"And yet you are," she cuts in, then grimaces. "Sorry. Habit."

He waves her off and continues, "But you embarrassed me that night, too, so call it karma that everyone's making fun of you."

She blinks a couple of times, trying to clear her vision as if maybe then she'll see things from Jeff's point of view, but she doesn't, so she comments, "Well, I hope I'm not around when you _do_ mean to be a tool, but, anyway, let's get going to class, okay?"

She thinks, _"That could've gone worse. Way worse."_

And then suddenly she and Jeff are in the world's strangest, most idiotic game of romantic brinkmanship and they're kissing for an audience in the middle of Anthropology and there are love declarations.

It's all fake, but she's never been one to back down from a challenge, especially one coming from Jeff, so she'll see it through to the bitter end. Though the moment when they end up listening to "A.M. 180" by Grandaddy on her iPod at the same time with that classic "sharing earbuds" romcom move while they buy pops from the vending machine comes across as truly tender, not sickly sweet. She swears Jeff catches a glimpse of what they could actually be in his reflection while he fishes his Coke out from the bottom of the machine.

The moment dissolves when they get to the study room because Abed's pulling a fucking _engagement ring_ out of his back pocket and Britta repeats, in a dull mental lament, over the sound of Annie's pained howl after she's punched Jeff square in the nose, _"Idiot, idiot, idiot."_

For once, she's not sure if she's berating herself, or Jeff, or all of them—actually, she'll spare Annie a little, if only because she's barely twenty and Britta was a hell of a lot dumber than her at that age. But at the end of it all, after their messy reveals and after learning Jeff had made out with Annie outside at the Transfer Dance, she wonders, _"How did I truly think that I loved him?"_

So Britta does what she does best these days (besides drink and smoke weed and disappoint herself and her parents).

She retreats into hiding.

**

Jeff ends up being the one to indulge her in her little game of hide and seek.

She's surprised it's not through a text, but a phone call on a random Thursday in late September.

"Hello?" she answers suspiciously.

"Hey, have you had any dinner yet?" he asks.

She looks through her fridge. Her best bet is a sad salad with limp, wilted spring mix and peppers and cucumbers that are closer to death than she'd like.

"I haven't, why?"

"I'm thinking I could bring over a pizza."

She pauses, confused. They don't do this. "Why are you being nice?"

"This is me apologizing, but I'm still pretty terrible at it," he admits. "Haven't yet been fully de-programmed as a slimy corporate lawyer. And if you'd rather not see me, I get it, just lemme know if you wanna order something else and I can pay you back later this week."

"You know that apologies involve saying the words 'I'm sorry,' right?" she snipes at him, but there's less vitriol than sass in her question, so she goes on, "You can apologize to me in person, but the pizza's a good start. And I'd have to be a real bitch to make you pay for a meal that you don't get to enjoy at all, so come on over."

"I kinda need your address first."

" _Oh, right, he's never been here."_ She gives her apartment a once-over as she tells him where it is. It's a mess, a perfect reflection of her life, but it doesn't matter. It's not like she's trying to impress Jeff, anyway.

"Is a medium cheese pizza from Geno's alright?" he asks.

"Yeah, thanks. None of your cauliflower crust bullshit, though," she adds. "I want an actual pie with grease and calories galore."

Jeff releases a theatrical sigh. "One day all you people will see the light about the important role vegetables can play on a pizza, but until then, I can cope. I'll order the pizza for delivery to your place and be over in about twenty."

"Cool. I'm in apartment 5, on the second floor."

"Apartment 5, second floor," he repeats. "Got it."

Britta's stomach growls as she hangs up, and despite her slight misgivings about this new development, she's pretty happy she gets to toss out her depressing spring mix and flavorless vegetables.

She cleans a bit while she's at it, haphazardly using her semi-functional handheld vacuum to ensure at least part of her couch is free of Suzie B's hair, and she sprays down her kitchen counters with some non-organic cleaner that probably expired at least a couple years ago.

" _It's not that I care about what Jeff's dumb ass thinks,"_ she tells herself as she grimaces at the black grime on the paper towel. _"I just don't wanna come off like a total slob."_

He arrives just before the pizza delivery woman does, and Britta's grateful to see that, while Jeff Winger has many flaws, he's a reasonably good tipper. She's even more grateful for the fact that they can forgo small talk and just chow down first instead. She's not sure what one's supposed to say to a former fiancee when the engagement was a tasteless joke.

She clears her throat and motions at her living room. "Um, I'd give you a tour, but this is pretty much it, besides my bedroom and the bathroom. And Suzie B's around here somewhere…"

She glances around the room, clucks her tongue, and calls, "Here, Suze. We got a visitor if you're feeling social today." After a few seconds, she shrugs at Jeff. "Don't take it personally, she usually does her own thing."

"You—you have a cat voice?" he asks, sounding like he's working to restrain a laugh.

"Yeah, I'm not gonna talk to her like she's a person," she responds as she flips on the TV. "You wanna watch Wheel?"

"...Wheel of Fortune?"

"Mmhmm. It's one of the few family traditions we had that didn't suck, and I've always kept up with it, when I can. Dinner, Wheel of Fortune, and Jeopardy."

Jeff slowly nods, then asks quietly, "So you're okay with us, like, hanging out for now, then?"

She shrugs. "I guess."

The first twelve minutes of the show pass mostly in silence, save for one of them solving the occasional riddle or mentioning that Pat Sajak's mad creepy in how often he ogles the women contestants. Jeff breaks it with a murmured, "I'm sorry," during a Pepto Bismol ad, then expands on that to clarify, "For running away at the dance. I—I should've at least stayed to talk to you. And for the stupid fake relationship stunt earlier this year. That was dumb."

"That wasn't totally your fault—I kinda put you on the spot last year. And I escalated our fake dating thing just as much as you did, so I think we're even there," she offers. "But thank you, just the same. I appreciate that, Jeff."

"You're welcome, Britta." With anyone else, the moment might linger, but Jeff dispels it as he gestures in disbelief at the TV. "Just solve the damn puzzle, Linda—it's all Greek to me! That's clearly the phrase, you don't need another letter—"

"Oh, she fucked up _bad_ ," Britta interrupts as the contestant's spin bankrupts her.

Jeff shakes his head. "God, people are morons."

"Takes one to know one," Britta points out with a smirk as she retrieves a Yuengling from her fridge, and it'd be rude to just leave her guest hanging, right? She gestures toward Jeff with her bottle. "Want a beer?"

"If you're offering, sure."

She brings another over for him, and the sound of the _clink_ as they "cheers" to Vanna White is a factory reset on whatever they are these days.

"So you said your family would watch the game shows together?" Jeff asks as Johnny Gilbert narrates the Jeopardy intro.

She nods while she sips her beer. "Most nights, yeah. It was about the only idyllic suburbia activity I really enjoyed," she recounts with a partially bitter laugh. "Everything with my parents was so regimented, but for that hour, everyone sorta relaxed a bit."

"That sounds nice," Jeff hums.

"Did your—I mean, did you and your mom ever have any traditions like that?"

"Not really, not with how much she worked. Plus she always viewed game shows like this as a competition, so it wasn't as much fun to watch with her. Especially not when they did teen Jeopardy week since she'd expect me to know a lot of the answers."

He tries to brush off his old pain with a light laugh, and Britta lets him as she comments dryly, "Well, lucky for you, I don't hold your intelligence in such high esteem, so I'm not expecting you to beat any of the contestants today."

"I could—eh, who am I kidding, I don't have a diverse enough knowledge base to be competitive on this show. And I don't think whiskey and law would be a category."

She laughs at that, at his little self-deprecating joke, too, and she's surprised at just how good it feels.

Jeff gets to his feet once the episode ends and says, "I gotta get going and finish some reading for Anthropology."

"Okay. I'll, um, see you in a couple days at the next study meeting?"

"Yeah. This was, uh, cool. Maybe do it again sometime?"

"It was nice," Britta agrees. "And I think I'd like that."

 _Sometime_ happens next month. And then two weeks after that. And then a week and a half after that.

It's not a routine, per se. Neither one of them can keep those, they're too unreliable. It's just two friends getting dinner and watching game shows and sometimes playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2—turns out Jeff's terrible at most video games, and Britta's happy to lord a bit of meaningless superiority over him.

And then, around 9:10 on a Friday at the start of November, it's just two friends accidentally kissing each other goodbye in the doorway of Britta's apartment as Jeff's about to leave.

"Whoops," she whispers, her nose crinkling as she laughs a little.

"Sorry about that," Jeff murmurs, his eyes still locked on hers.

"You don't. Um, you don't have to be," she offers shyly.

"Is it okay that I'm not?"

He's nearly in limbo, suspended halfway between staying and going, and Britta yanks him back into her orbit by the front of his peacoat and a rushed answer of, "It's totally okay."

"Thank fuck," Jeff exhales against her lips as he steps back toward her, and their shared brand of exquisite violence replaces the hesitancy from their previous accidental kiss, and Britta can't bother to pretend they'll end up anywhere besides her bed. It takes them a couple minutes longer than they'd like to shoo Suzie B. out of her room—Jeff makes a "looking for the pussy" joke and she laughs even as she threatens to chuck him out on his ass. But from there it's all blazing sparks of rediscovery, of how they get their fingers tangled in each other's hair and trail their nails down each other's backs, of how Jeff growls her name when he's on top and she breathes his out like a prayer while she rides him, of how they can't even bother with dirty talk because the way their bodies fit together makes everything feel too fucking good to do anything but moan.

Britta wants to regret it. She knows she should.

She can't.

She goes for banter afterwards to cover for her fear. "I think we accidentally skipped a step in this process. Isn't it usually dinner, dessert, sex?" she asks. "Although getting dessert after can be delightful, too."

Jeff shakes his head. "Maybe for someone with a sweet tooth, but that's not my style."

"You're really telling me you've never destroyed even half—no, a quarter of a pint of Ben and Jerry's after sleeping with someone?"

"Can't say I have," Jeff answers lightly as he starts getting dressed.

"You haven't lived a full life, then," she admonishes him.

"Excuse you, I think I'm living just fine, all things considered." He checks out her sex hair and winks.

She rolls her eyes, but he's not wrong. "You're insufferable."

"And you're a hurricane."

"I swear, if you say it's because I'm wet and wild…"

He puts his hands up in mock surrender. "I was gonna say you're a force of nature. Untamable."

She's not sure if she should take that as a compliment or an insult.

It's probably both, knowing Jeff.

**

From there, they fall into familiar pathways, cycling somewhere between platonic buddies and friends with benefits, off and on, for most of the year. They break the pattern at the end of the semester, once everyone finds out about them, and they don't revisit it that much, save for the summers.

It's easy and painless, given that they don't have to sneak around to avoid the group—or what remains of it by the time they're technically seniors—and there's a near sickly comfort to knowing what Jeff can offer. To the interlaced taste of weed and whiskey that comes to live in her mouth far too often every year from June through late August.

They go along like that til everything starts collapsing. Not in a normal Greendale way, either. In a "Greendale is being bought out by Subway and turned into a sandwich artist university" way.

They end up together in the study room while Annie and Abed are busy panicking with Craig.

"I've gotta say—I never thought Greendale would get shut down like this. Always figured it would be from the black mold or us losing accreditation," Jeff muses. He tilts his chin upward at Britta. "What's next for you?"

"I'm thinking I'm gonna transfer to City College," she answers, "but I'm knowing I'm gonna still be a bartender. You?"

"Subway offered me a job. Corporate lawyer gig."

"Good shit," she nods. "Gonna take it?"

He shrugs. "At least for now. It'll pay. And it'll be kinda nice to have a bit of normalcy. A little…"

"Sanity?" Britta suggests with a laugh, and he nods. "Yeah, I think so, too," she confides. "Though I'm not sure if Abed and Annie would agree. They're not ready for this to end."

Jeff ducks his head in agreement. "Yeah, they're part of the adulthood-begins-at-30 generation. But they'll just have to adapt, I guess. Since this is over. Like, _over_ over," he emphasizes with a smile he can't quite hide.

"Amen to that, honestly," Britta answers with her own smile. "And to think, this all started because you wanted to—"

"Nail you," he cuts in, laughing a little. "Yeah, I regret nothing."

"Don't," she tells him with a wistful grin. "I mean, after everything that happened here, what did either of us _really_ get done aside from each other?"

"Exactly. And what are either of us gonna be leaving with?"

The question comes across more seriously than she'd thought it would. It might be the darkness of the study room, the lights dimmed low, or its emptiness—the lack of furniture besides the table and a handful of chairs is strange, compared to how it usually served as a hotbed of commotion.

" _No,"_ Britta recognizes against her better instincts, which are screaming to let it go, _"it's because it's you and Jeff."_

He's looking at her like he had during the first paintball game, or during a handful of times they've had sex over the years, like she might just be able to offer him some type of shattered salvation. But those moments always pass, always get swept under the rug, and Britta figures she can handle that job this time. For the last time, probably, she senses, with no small hint of sadness.

"Um, I should go...clean out my locker, she said, at the age of 33." She gives Jeff a little half-smile like everything's cool as she gets up.

She can feel his eyes on the back of her neck and she silently pleads, _"Say something. Tell me I haven't been making it up this whole time,"_ as she's almost out of the room.

Jeff's on his feet. "Let's get married."

Well, damn, she wasn't expecting _that_.

She freezes on the spot and stammers, "What? Are you—this is a joke, right?"

"No. No joke. This—" he gestures between them. "This is what matters, isn't it? This is what keeps it all from being pointless."

His breathless excitement, his unsteady desperation—it must infect her, because suddenly her breathing's shallow, too.

"Let's do what people do. Let's get a house we can't afford and a dog that makes us angry," Jeff tells her, and he sounds so damn sure, so confident, that she finds herself stepping toward him without thinking about it.

" _Always pulled like magnets to each other,"_ Britta thinks just before she answers, "And we'll dedicate an entire cabinet to grocery bags and realize we have a favorite brand of olive oil?"

" _Yes._ Marry me."

She'll always follow in his direction, and he'll always get pulled in her wake—it's a want and a need, and it's beyond fucked, but…

"Okay. Yeah."

She worries for the slightest breath of an instant before they kiss, but Jeff's solid, and his commitment is there. She's practically willing herself to freak out, to have some part of her subconscious go, "This is insane," but the concern never arrives. She murmurs, "Yeah. This feels right. Let's—let's get out of here and never look back."

"Yeah, but first—" his gaze travels down her body to drink it in and she automatically shivers. "Let's lock these doors and pull the shades." He takes a look at what they're gonna christen. "We've never had sex on the new table."

"Yes! Two for two," Britta cheers as she dashes to the opposite end of the room. "Medium roughness, high tempo?" she calls.

"Uhh, let's make it a number eight," Jeff suggests, and she's nodding in agreement as she pulls the door shut.

Annie, Abed, and Craig burst through the door with a joyful cry of "Buried treasure!" seconds before Jeff can lock the double doors at the front of the room.

"Lock the doors and close the blinds!" Abed shouts, and Britta groans internally; her and Jeff's reason for doing that was undoubtedly better than...whatever this intrusion is.

"Buried treasure!" Craig yells, and Annie helps explain the situation as she dances. "There may be buried treasure _on campus_. We could _save Greendale,_ you guys!"

Of course they can. Of course.

**

Things move quickly from there, as is always the case with Greendale-related crises. After they all watch a surprisingly well-produced documentary about Russell Borchert's hidden treasure and emotional computer, Hickey returns with blueprints and an axe, and he's smashing a wall of the teacher's lounge because the X on Chief Drunky's whiskey bottle obviously marks the spot to the secret lab.

Britta can't take it anymore—especially not when Duncan electrocutes himself.

"This is insane! There's nothing here!"she yells, and for once, Jeff backs her up.

"You all don't want to admit this is over, but it is. And guess what?" He grabs her hand. "Britta and I are getting married!"

Reactions are varied: Shirley coos with a signature, "That's nice," Craig and Abed don't notice it since they're still in quest mode, and Annie's eyebrows jump up into her hair before she sneers, "You two are ridiculous together. I'm not even gonna acknowledge it."

" _We're_ ridiculous?" Britta shoots back. "Annie, you all just caused an electrical fire searching for some crackpot fortune—"

"There's a secret trapdoor here!" Abed calls, motioning them over to where he's squatting by the vending machine.

Annie does some weird krumping and shouts, "Booyah!" before rushing over to him, and Britta and Jeff let out a long-suffering sigh together.

"Shall we?" He gestures toward the trapdoor as Hickey tosses some rope to Abed.

"Don't think we have much of a choice," she notes grimly.

"C'mon, it can be one final adventure for old time's sake," Jeff cajoles her as they drop down to join the others.

That turns out to be more literal than either of them want, as the assholes from the board and Chang somehow find their way down, steal Borchert's millions, and trap them in the lab.

Jeff glances at her. "Guess this might be forever, then."

She plops down in one of the spinny chairs. "Not how I thought it'd turn out. Stuck with you all in a secret computer lab."

"Well...Raquel's emotional components still work," Borchert notes as he fiddles with various switches on the computer. "So, in theory, a big blast of passion could reboot her into a cold start. But it'd have to be more passion than I get when I rub my nipples."

They all cringe at that mental image before Jeff, as usual, takes the lead.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," he mutters as he adjusts the chin strap on the giant helmet transmitter thing that Borchert's passed to him. "But since I'd rather not die down here…"

None of them can stifle their laughs at how ridiculous he looks.

He rolls his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, I look stupid, I know. Now," he twirls his pointer finger in a circle, "turn around so I can try to emote about all of you, I guess."

She tries to tell herself this is dumb, that she can't possibly guess what Jeff's thinking about her, nor does he have access to a window into her mind.

Goosebumps spike up like mini skyscrapers on her arms and the back of her neck when he looks at her and she focuses on what she wants, searches for language with a precision that's so often eluded her while she's crafting English papers.

She thinks, _"I don't know what's next for us, or if there will be an us, but I sure as hell want you by my side, Jeff."_

She tries to track how long his eyes stay on her compared to the others, but she doesn't dare turn around if it might ruin his concentration since he needs every bit of it.

The jukebox springs to life and she springs for the secret exit, just in case it somehow closes up too quickly. "Don't forget the deed!" she shouts as she scurries out, beckoning to Annie and Abed, who are hot on her tail.

She hears Jeff snort, and the faint echo of a, "Duh-doy," reaches her ears.

Saving the day feels weirdly anti-climactic, possibly because they'd been afraid for their own lives more than the fate of the school, for once, but now Subway University's defunct before it ever got off the ground, and they're more than happy to indulge the Dean in an impromptu dance party.

"So…" Britta blows out a breath. Despite all the insane hijinks they and their friends get up to, she and Jeff usually follow the same old script. "We're not running away and getting married anymore, I take it?"

"It does seem a tad short-sighted at this point," he agrees.

"Then what's next?" she demands, with surprising agressiveness. Jeff looks a touch taken aback, and she clarifies, "Are we friends, are we fuck-buddies, are we nothing at all? I just—I need to know, okay."

Considering they were trapped under the school in a hidden basement lair about ten minutes ago, she should probably be more grateful that they're able to have this discussion aboveground, but she's sick of the repetition to their roles, to how she and Jeff tend to discard each other, so her next sentence comes out sharp. "Because we always fall apart after going through trauma and I'm fucking tired of having to guess at what we are. At whether or not I should want you. I—"

She shuts herself up to avoid a repeat of freshman year at the Transfer Dance, but Jeff can gauge her silences better than most people know her words.

"I was thinking none of the above, actually," he answers. He glances away from her for a second, then looks back down into her eyes. "I was thinking earlier, when I was trying to get the door open, that I always invent reasons for us to not actually get together. But then we end up in the same place anyway."

"With each other, on the verge of destruction," Britta summarizes, trying to steady her hands back. Trying not to reach for the glimmer of hope she thinks might exist.

"On the verge of it, yeah, and that's why we—why I—always run. But if we keep arriving here, then would it really hurt to give us a shot?"

"Don't—don't do this." She forces her lips into a thin line; despite the possibilities, she refuses to consider them until Jeff lays them out on the table. "No lawyer-talking me into anything with leading questions, Winger."

He shakes his head and chuckles. "Should've known you wouldn't make this easy, Perry."

Her chest tightens as she answers, too quickly, "Make what easy?"

"Admitting this. That—that I want you. That I want there to be an us. And, I mean, it's still way too early to say if marriage is in the cards," Jeff acknowledges, "but I'm pretty damn sure you could be the best girlfriend I've ever had. If the idea of actually dating me and pursuing a legitimate adult relationship together doesn't sound too terrible," he jokes, but she catches the sound of nerves in his laugh, in how quickly it disappears, and the knowledge that he's not playing around helps her finally, finally release some of her fears.

"Considering my last boyfriend did nothing but hawk Subway food-stuffs, I _think_ you'll be an upgrade. Hard to say," she banters back, keeping things on familiar ground before she leaps.

She leans into him a little. "Even when I haven't wanted to admit it to myself, I'm pretty sure I've known. And I'm betting you have, too, since you're pretty wise. For a law professor."

It's Jeff's turn to ask the question, with an urgency that undermines his cool in a way that only endears him to her even more. "Known what?"

"That for whatever it's worth, coming from me...I love you," Britta confesses, before adding, with all the false levity she can snatch up, "And ain't that just the worst thing you've ever heard?"

"The _worst,_ " he repeats, dramatically rolling his eyes before he pulls her close and shoots her that devilish half-grin, half-smirk that's captivated her for five years and counting.

"And for whatever it's worth from my end, I love you, too," he murmurs, pressing a firm kiss to her lips.

She's gotta counter-balance all this mush somehow, and throwing out insults at Jeff is practically a reflex at this point. "Sap."

"Dork."

Their normal repartee doesn't quite feel right, though.

She takes a stab at something new—it's appropriate for the moment. For them going from whatever they were to committing to a genuine relationship.

"Yours," Britta whispers as she looks up at him, shattering the chain of digs for once, and she laughs the tiniest bit into their latest kiss because, duh-doy, she always has been.

" _We've always been each other's,"_ she realizes. _"Even when we've been too scared or stupid or stubborn to admit it."_

"Yours," Jeff confirms, gazing down at her with a rueful smile as if he, too, knows they've finally caught on, and they've finally caught each other.


End file.
